Tommy Robinson: Why are his companies registered under different names?

Supporters of the far-right provocateur Tommy Robinson often praise him for plain speaking. But Good Law Project can reveal that over a period of two years he registered five firms under two different names, stretching company law to – and possibly beyond – breaking point.

Since 2017, the far-right agitator has set up a series of companies under the name “Stephen Lennon” – often thought to be Tommy Robinson’s real name – including Lennon Consultancy Ltd, Bubba Media Ltd and Red Sam Construction Ltd.

But in 2019 two companies, Aloha Enterprise Ltd and Haram Enterprise Ltd, emerged with “Paul Harris” listed as a director at the same address on a Luton industrial estate that “Stephen Lennon” used in 2018. And Harris shares more than an address with Lennon. Both of them appeared on Companies House as being born in November 1982.

Paul Harris is the name Lennon claimed was his real name when Channel 4 interviewed him in 2010. It’s also the name on the passport he used to come back from the United States in 2012, after being refused entry as “Andrew McMaster”. This trip earned him a 10-month jail sentence in 2013, after admitting the possession of a false identity document with improper intention.

At the trial, the judge said “I am going to sentence you under the name of Stephen Lennon, although I suspect that is not actually your true name, in the sense that it is not the name that appears on your passport”. Anti-fascist magazine Searchlight says that Lennon may have changed his name by deed poll. 

According to Companies House, “the director on the company should use their name as shown on their passport”, adding that when a director is appointed “companies must provide the required particulars of the person being appointed” and that this information includes “a person’s name and any former name (as well as a number of other particulars when giving notice of a person’s appointment). The law states a person’s ‘name’ means a person’s Christian name (or other forename) and surname.”

Under the Companies Act 2006, which was in force between 2017 and 2019, it was an offence for any person knowingly or recklessly to make a misleading, false or deceptive statement in any Companies House filing.  Anyone convicted of the offence could be sent to prison for up to two years.  If he did provide a false name for himself, it is hard to see how Lennon could not have known that he was making a false statement.

Lennon founded Bubba Media Ltd with the name “Stephen Lennon” in November 2018 and both Aloha Enterprise and Haram Enterprise Ltd as “Paul Harris” in February 2019, before registering Red Sam Construction Ltd as “Stephen Lennon” in November of the same year. So unless he changed his name back to Stephen Lennon before 2017, then changed his name again to Paul Harris before February 2019, and finally changed his name back to Stephen Lennon within eight months, at least one of the declarations he made was not under his real name.

The twists and turns of Lennon’s slippery identity don’t stop there. When he was arrested in Canada earlier this year, he gave the name “Stephen Lennon” and said he was born in Ireland, even though Lennon was born in Luton – enough for politicians in Ireland to call for an investigation into his documents.

When contacted by the Sunday Times about these companies, Lennon said the paper had got “everything wrong. Literally everything.” But he did not expand on what the errors in documents listed at Companies House might be.

According to Good Law Project’s executive director, Jo Maugham, there are “serious questions” about “how Tommy Robinson funds his far-right disinformation”.

“We would like to see a proper investigation by Companies House into whether he has acted illegally by setting up different vehicles in different names,” Maugham said.